Fire Song (5 page)

‘I know just what you want,’ he said, opening the box to find a few shards of biscuit he’d sometimes hand her in a brown paper bag. She’d keep most of the bits for Pippa, and maybe one for Blackie, who was waiting patiently on the mat outside.

She accepted his offering and decided to take the shopping straight home to Mum. She still had the whole afternoon to figure out what she should do. On weighing it all up, as she walked back, she thought Dom’s dad was the best chance, the most comforting idea. Even despite the mail order bride stuff. Yes, that was the way to go, but first she had to get home. Mum would be waiting and she’d already taken too long.

All the way back down the street she had this funny urgent feeling and kept checking the sky for telltale smoke, something bigger than the usual trails from kitchen chimneys up and down Blackheath. A sign that Mum had lost it and was not even bothering to wait for night. Pippa! Mum! But the sky was clear, bright and, apart from a bird or two, there were only bunchy clouds in it, all frilly and pretty and sailing by, unconcerned.

T
here wasn’t a sign of fire, not even smoke from their own kitchen chimney pot, which was unusual in itself, when Ingrid turned in at the gate of
Emoh Ruo
and almost tripped over Blackie in her haste. But with the awful way her heart was thudding, she knew, she just knew something was up. Something bad had happened while she was out. But what?

Mum! Pippa!

Inside the kitchen, she could see that Mum had gone about the business of the day as if everything were normal. She was making scones, for heaven’s sake – on the day she planned to burn the house down! Making scones. Maybe she really had changed her mind! Or lost it completely. But where was she?

‘Mum! Pippa, I’m back.’ She flung the string bag down and then put the billycan on Mum’s marble pastry table, alarmed because she suddenly heard a faint sobbing noise from the side verandah. That was where she found Pippa, a fearful little bundle outside the bathroom. She raised her tear-stained face gratefully when she caught sight of her big sister and pointed inside.

Through the half-open bathroom door, Ingrid could see Mum’s legs on the cracked lino. She didn’t know whether to run right away and fetch Mrs Harry Williams next door, or see for herself what had happened.

‘It’s all right, Pippa,’ she said in a strange voice that seemed not her own, in its loud calmness.

‘Just stay there, darlin'. Ingrid’s here. It’ll be all right, pet.’ But that only made the child wail. Still, she had to leave her.

Ingrid could see that Mum had fallen on the floor near the claw-footed bath, right beside the chip heater. There was no bump and no blood, thank heavens! She was lying there quietly, eyes closed, as if she could be – no. She mustn’t say the word. Ingrid was down beside her and listening, listening for Mum’s breath that came finally in short laboured bursts. She took one of Mum’s limp hands and pressed it to her own hot cheek. But what was up with her face? It looked twisted, strange, ugly. She leapt up and ran outside, screaming for Mrs Williams. She saw at once that the blinds were down next door: a sure sign the Williamses were out. She dashed back inside to the telephone fixed to the wall in the hallway, where she had to stand on a chair to talk into the speaker.

‘Please, please, let the phone bill be up to date,’ she thought, as she dialled for help.

Uncle Ken had once said there were songs for everything and for everyone and Ingrid thought that might be true. She told him she liked to make up songs all the time – only sometimes it got annoying when they went over and over like a broken record. Mostly, though, she liked the songs that came into her head. And because he was Uncle Ken
and always saw the positive, as Grandma Logan said, he told her that one day when she grew up she’d probably be a songwriter or a poet, or both!

There were songs that made her laugh, silly ones she’d liked tossing to Pippa and Charlie to make them laugh, too. And out-and-about songs she liked to make up, when she and Pippa were playing, or specially when they were out walking. There were others she remembered, too, and sometimes words drifted into her head unexpectedly and brought up a memory of someone quite sharply.

Lovey-dovey songs that Daddy and Mum and Auntie often liked to sing back in the Sydney days, when they were all together. Or those songs Auntie Marj would sing when she went all moon-eyed over film stars, or sometimes over lanky Bill Babbitt, when he was courting her and they came visiting together.

And there were those little refrains Ingrid made up herself on the spot as she was working round the house. ‘Put the washing on the line, in the valley so fine,’ or ‘Shell the peas, quick if you please, and we’ll all have tea.’

But lately there were also songs that could annoy or hurt. Like the one that sometimes popped into her head and gave her a twisty tight feeling, because it always brought a flood of thoughts about Daddy. And she didn’t want to think about him in the ordinary light of day – only at bedtime, when she could release him from this painful part of her, and see him large and kind and close by, and whisper to him if she wanted. But the song persisted and now she could see him clearly, and this was in the bright light of day, waiting on Mrs Harry Williams’s verandah for some kind of inspiration.

She could see Daddy, in her mind’s eye, in his blue-striped pyjamas, bending down to see his face in the small mirror tied with string to the window latch in the old bathroom of that house long ago. That was when they’d all been together – the boys too. She could smell soap and hear Daddy singing that blessed song as he lathered and lathered about ghost riders. Or the other one about a man with a banjo on his knee. There surely wasn’t anyone in the world as strong and as handsome as her daddy. Or with such a good voice.

There was some sort of comfort in that thought, but this morning, one of his shaving songs didn’t help the terrible situation – Mum in the hospital, and having to face Mum in hospital. Then what to do about Pippa asleep in Mrs Harry Williams’s place; or finding Daddy, who was who-knew-where; and that other plan of Mum’s, too scary to even think about.

Yet there it was again. His image, his early-morning cheery voice, singing about ghosts in the sky.

‘That’s not particularly helpful,’ she said out loud to make them go away.

‘My mother says only nutty people talk to themselves.’

Ingrid jumped – and there was Gracie Williams, big and freckle-faced, poking her head round the corner. That girl’s plaits had to be thicker than anyone else’s in the world! Grace crouched down beside her, one plait thumping over a beefy shoulder.

‘But you’re allowed, today, Ingrid,’ she said in her let’s-be-friends way, ‘on account of your mother nearly dropping dead this morning. Must be awful. I’d hate for my mother to get all twisted up like that. Mum said one side of her face – ’

‘Scat!’ Ingrid wanted to yell at Gracie Williams, but she didn’t dare. Mrs Harry Williams had Pippa in there, safe and sound, asleep on the bed and she – well, she had things to work out. Like what next? Getting Mum better and getting her home, for one thing. Finding Daddy, if that was possible.

It came to her suddenly in the flash of Gracie Williams’s sympathetic face. She’d visit Mum first. Talk to her about what next, if she was up to it. She’d be in a far different mood, for sure. ‘I hope it never happens to you,’ she said with effort.

‘Lucky we’re a pretty healthy lot,’ Gracie said, still smiling anxiously at her. ‘Mum always says that.’

‘Your mum says a lot!’ There! She couldn’t help making a crack at poor Gracie, but the girl simply nodded as if in total agreement.

‘Wanna play Sevenies? I’ve got two good tennis balls.’

They could hoy those tennis balls up against the wall for hours on end and sometimes it was okay to be with Gracie Williams playing Sevenies against the cool moss-covered wall, lost in chants and that hierarchy of ball tricks. But not today.

‘Gotta go and see my mum at the hospital,’ Ingrid said decisively getting to her feet, ‘while Pippa’s still asleep.’

‘Can I come?’ That whiney voice again.

‘Not really. Just Blackie – that dog needs a walk. They said strictly one at a time. Hospital rules, Grace.’

Where did these easy lies come from? she wondered, untying Blackie where he lay in the shade of giant hydrangeas, pleased as always to greet her with one of those big wet licks of his.

‘Blackie, darling,’ she crooned, stopping to pet him for just a moment, and tickle the bit of his belly that made him swoon.

‘C’mon now, boy!’ And she headed for the gate, all too eager. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she called out, to make it up to Gracie, ‘and maybe we’ll play Sevenies then.’

If it had been Dom or if it had been Ruth or Natalie, she would’ve said yes, and they’d have walked with her down the streets in silence, if she wanted, and waited outside in the hospital grounds, happy to mind Blackie, find the tap and give him a drink, play fetchings or something, till she came back outside. And they would’ve waited for her to talk about Mum, never mentioning her face, though they knew, just like the entire town would probably know by now. And what was going on in there in her sickroom.

But Gracie! She just couldn’t bear to be with talkative Gracie this morning. Come to that, she couldn’t bear to be with anyone, really – only the dog. She had to have time to think about things. But it wasn’t the same as it had been this morning. At least she didn’t have to think about stopping Mum doing that dreadful thing. Not now that Mum had stopped herself. Now she was away in the hospital, she couldn’t light those twisted rags, lying soaked in the hidden bowls, ready to start a fearsome blaze…

And she didn’t have to hide in the shed like Mum said they should until the fire got going, and then come out and scream to the neighbours, ‘Fire! Fire!’

‘As if we’ve just pelted out of the house, when it’s got a real good hold, you and me, that’s what we’ll do.’ And looking at Ingrid’s expressionless face, after her earlier outburst, Mum had added, as if Ingrid didn’t know, ‘No burnt-out house, no
insurance money. Understand? Understand?’ She could hear her mother’s voice drilling her this morning, and her own sickening silence.

Maybe God had intervened, the way Mrs Harry Williams said he could. But Mum always said she didn’t have time for Mrs Harry Williams’s kind of god. She had her own god and didn’t need to hear all the hoo-ha Mrs Harry Williams and the church went on with. And that self-righteous minister.

She was passing that part of the street with the picket fence, where she always plucked first the spiky rosemary leaves poking through, twiggy dark green, and then the bunched lantana flowers, purple and strong-smelling, just to inhale the crushed scent of them.

Oh, Mum, don’t be too twisted up, she thought as she scattered the leaves, petals and twigs idly. She headed for the hospital with thoughts of Mum’s pretty face and of the strange thing that had happened to it. Her face had still looked strange when the ambulance arrived, sirens going and all.

Two men carrying a stretcher had rushed into the house and sent Pippa into a fit of frightened sobbing. But by then Mrs Harry Williams had come home and was there with them. She lifted Pippa up, just as if she were a baby, patting her and whispering comfort into her ear.

‘We thought it best not to move Mrs Crowe,’ Mrs Harry Williams told them as they headed for the bathroom.

‘She’s still here lying on the floor, my mum. I put a cover over her cause she was cold. Her face’s gone –’

One of the ambulance men came right into the bathroom and was crouching down beside her mother. Pippa was sobbing into Mrs Harry Williams’s shoulder and Ingrid
wanted to sob, too. But she was in charge and couldn’t cry like a baby – she knew that. Not that she could control the
thud, thud
of her heart.

Mum!

‘Is it all right? Is she all right? Her face?’ was all she could manage as the second ambulance officer angled the stretcher round the door.

‘It’s all right, love. It’ll all undo, her face and her arm,’ the kindly ambulance man told her. ‘Once we get your mum to the hospital, you’ll see. It’ll all come back the way it was.’ And Mum, strangely limp and quiet, was taken away to the safety of the hospital, where they could undo what had happened, if you could believe big kind ambulance men.

They’d let her ride in the ambulance all the way to the hospital. She was too frightened even to hold Mum’s hand and, once they arrived, the nurses and then a doctor took over and she was left out in the corridor. Eventually, one of the nurses had told her to go home and come back later in the afternoon, that the doctor had said her mum was all right, but that she shouldn’t be disturbed.

When she’d got back home, some of their immediate neighbours had come inside. Mum would never have allowed that. Decrepit Mrs Bennett, nosy Mrs Johnson and lazy Mrs Rankin, she called them. But those women had fussed over her and little Pippa and with their kindness there was less of the fear and strangeness in the house without Mum.

And then Mrs Harry Williams said she’d take the kids into her place for the while. That was just before she’d asked, ‘Don’t I smell kero?’ All quietly, and Ingrid had lied and said well maybe because before the terrible thing happened, they’d just filled the heater and spilt some.

The women nodded at each other. ‘Your mother was far from well, poor dear.’

‘You mustn’t be too upset, ‘Mrs Bennett had said, pressing a red apple she’d thought to bring into Ingrid’s hands. ‘Your mother is in the best place, you know.’ And though she was afraid for Mum in that hospital, best place or not, as the idea settled, there was this uncontrollable guilty thankfulness she just couldn’t help feeling.

‘Thank you, Mrs Bennett. I know she is.’

Thank you, God, she wanted to sing out, that there’ll be no fire-setting tonight, no burning down of our house. No
Emoh Ruo
going up in smoke.

‘It might take some time, dear, but your mother will be fine,’ Mrs Johnson said in the kindest way. And Ingrid nodded in agreement as she spoke. Please God this was true.

Mum would get better real fast and then, when she came home, she’d have a real change of heart about all this fire stuff. She’d look around and see just how pretty the place was with its nice wide hall and with all those big rooms left and right all the way along it. And she’d notice the good things like the homely smell of Grandma Logan’s big fireplaces and the kitchen smell of apple pie and wild roses and the sharp apples from the garden. And Mum would work out something else, the way she always did, and not go on with this terrible idea anymore. ‘That was tommyrot,’ she’d say, like she usually did. ‘Absolute stuff and nonsense! What on earth was I thinking?’

This was heavenly intervention, just as Mrs Harry Williams had said there could be. Just as well she hadn’t spilt the beans about Mum’s plans to anyone in the town.

But right now, despite comforting words, all these hours later, Mum was still lying weak and pale, in some hospital
bed that she’d have to find. Weak and pale didn’t suit Mum. And what about her face? Sometimes she spent hours at the blond wood dressing table. She never missed a mirror in the hallway or lounge room or the bathroom – always looking, adjusting, studying that pretty face, even in the window glass!